Diminish
Instant
Target creature has base power and toughness 1/1 until end of turn.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- The List
- Price
- $0.25
- EDHREC rank
- #19552
Diminish turns any creature into a 1/1 until end of turn for a single blue mana — instant speed, no conditions, nothing to answer. It's a fine combat trick or pseudo-removal in creature-light formats, but a one-mana temporary effect that leaves the board state intact by next upkeep is rarely worth a card slot.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Diminish is too temporary to compete with actual removal — blue has access to Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Reality Shift, all of which permanently answer a threat for the same or similar cost. Pauper is where Diminish earns the most consideration, since permanent single-target removal in blue is scarce at common and combat tricks carry real weight in a format full of small creatures. In Legacy and Vintage it's theoretically legal but never played — those formats end games before a 1/1 shrink matters. Oathbreaker follows the same logic as Commander: blue has better permanent answers, so Diminish stays on the bench.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.25 bulk tier
At $0.25, Diminish is pure bulk — you're paying for cardboard, not scarcity. It won't appreciably rise in value, but if you need a cheap blue trick to round out a Pauper list, the price is no obstacle.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.